SOME BOOKS OF TIIE WEEK.
[Under this heading on notice such BooLu of the week as hare not been reserved, for review in other forms.] The Making of the Empire. By Arthur Temple. (A. Melrose. 5s.)—This is a new edition (the fifth), but the book is, we are told, substantially different from what it was at its first appearance six years ago. Much, indeed, has changed in "Britain beyond the seas" during this time. Australian Federation and South African expansion are but the best known and most important of Colonial developments. Recent events, of course, loom largely ; but it is not without significance that in the chronological table, covering, as it does, more than four centuries and a half, more than a page has been devoted to the events of 1897-1902. It was a little rash to put the "Coronation of King Edward" before the "Meeting of Colonial Premiers in London." Mr. Temple's work is, we suppose, descriptive rather than critical; otherwise we should have expected to find some detailed account of the very curious political experiments that are being tried in Now Zealand. Imagine a chapter about that Colony and not a word said about female suffrage ! When we are told of its general prosperity, we ought also to hear something of its very heavy burden of Debt. But everywhere Mr. Temple colours his atmosphere with a rosy tint. Nevertheless, The Making of the Empire will be found a useful as well as an interesting volume.—We may mention together with this The Bond of Empire, by M. A. Jessett (Sampson Low, Marston, and Co., Gs.) Mr. Jessett discusses various questions of the first importance, but we cannot, we regret to say, find space to deal with them in detail on the present occasion.
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